Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars
State Machine Slow Drift’s designers suggest that its focus is on ethereal textures, though in reality it offers up a wide selection of preset styles, much as a hardware synth might do. These include basses, lo‑fi leads, soft pads, FM‑style bells and incisive lead sounds that have a little more attitude. The GUI is reassuringly straightforward with all the ‘instant gratification’ controls on the Home page. Access to the Synth, MIDI FX and Audio FX pages is via tabs.
Each patch can be made up of two layered sounds, the balance being controlled by a large central knob. Samples can be swapped out from the main page and any MIDI FX or Audio FX combinations can be locked so as not to change when exploring new presets. Even the ‘deep’ access isn’t at all intimidating so this is an instrument that lets you get results very quickly. Synth accesses the expected controls for sound source, filter, and separate envelopes for both filter and amplitude as well as LFO parameter modulation, and these can all be set independently for each of the two layers. While the LFO can modulate amplitude, pitch, filter and pan, it doesn’t include a link to the balance control between the two layered sounds, which I would have found useful. Even an option to invert the LFO phase would have done the trick. It does however offer a vibrato fade‑in control and a tempo sync option.
The MIDI FX section offers a scale quantise facility with a broad selection of scale types, a chord generator, and an arpeggiator of up to 16 steps with velocity control over each step. The Audio FX section comprises EQ, Distortion, Flanger, Delay and Reverb. Effect editing is available via the Audio FX tab to the left of the screen, but there’s nothing scary in there. In the main there’s a choice of effect variation with just three or four further rotary controls for adjustment.
The chord generator is excellent for dance‑style effects where you want to use all major, all minor or whatever chord type throughout the piece...
Despite the name and the suggestion that this is a synth suited to ambient music, I see it more as a general purpose instrument, and as with most synth presets, only a handful will actually grab your attention. However, it doesn’t take long to create a wide‑ranging set of ambient or lo‑fi pads and gentle leads. The chord generator is excellent for dance‑style effects where you want to use all major, all minor or whatever chord type throughout the piece, while the scale generator quantises whatever you play to the selected key and scale type. The arpeggiator, used in conjunction with the chord generator, provides a ‘one‑finger’ way to explore Stranger Things‑type lines, and the audio effects, while fairly basic, do add to the complexity of the final result. Given its low cost and ease of use, Slow Drift has to be seen as excellent value, even though not all the sounds are slow or drifty. Still not sure? There’s a free 14‑day demo so try it for yourself.
$59
$59